TEN gets talking with new panel show, This Week Live.

TEN has announced a new live panel chat show, This Week Live featuring Dave Thornton, Tommy Little, Tom Gleeson and Meshel Laurie.

Including special guests, live crosses and sketches, the show will look at the week’s news in front of a live audience in TEN’s Melbourne studios.

Created and produced by Craig Campbell (The Project, Rove Live) and Kevin Whyte (Token/Guesswork Television), it set to launch before the end of the month.

TEN’s Chief Programming Officer, Beverley McGarvey, said: “We are delighted to once again work with Craig Campbell and Kevin Whyte. They are the best in the business when it comes to producing a comedy format.

“This Week Live promises to be a unique and hugely entertaining show which will guarantee more than a few laughs, and probably raise some eyebrows.”

Whyte told TV Tonight, “It came together through a number of discussions with TEN about a show with funny people that gets them to filter the week and talk not just about the news but things that are exciting them. Much in the same way that a stand-up comedian would select their material for going on stage.

“It’s a pretty straightforward show without too many whistles and bells that takes apart the week. Having said that there’s no way that 4 comedians are going to be left to just sit down with Craig Campbell running the show. There will be pre-recorded elements, ‘live eyes’ and we’ll be getting out and about.”

The show will air Wednesdays at 9:30pm, the same timeslot where TEN had great success The Panel produced by Working Dog. But Whyte says any similarities are genre-based.

“The idea that it’s funny people sitting around in the studio talking is probably where The Panel comparisons begin and end,” he says.

“There will also be sketch elements not wildly dissimilar to the way Before the Game has characters.”

Comedian Tommy Little, who has also been cast in A League of Their Own for TEN said: “I’ve never had a job so I’m just excited about having a desk and a car space, getting to create a show with the three funniest people in the country is a bonus, I guess.”

Tom Gleeson added: “I’m 39 and bald. I don’t belong on television but someone’s paying me to do it, so I’ll turn up. I’m excited about this show because it’s live. I can say whatever I want, and then a million people hear it. TEN isn’t excited about this.”

This Week Live will also take a lighter approach than Roving Enterprises’ The Project.

“With The Project you come away learning stuff about the world. You will learn nothing from this show. That’s a promise!” Whyte laughs.

“We might completely ignore the biggest news story of the week if there’s no ‘funny’ in it.”

Broadcasting live from the same studio as The Project in Melbourne means a fast-turnaround for crews.

“When a show is sizzling in that little room with its compact, sardine audience it can really fly,” says Whyte.

“Sometimes with big studios there’s so much space around it that you feel quite distant from the action. But there you feel like you are on the set.”

Musical acts will also be considered once the show has settled in.

“Nothing is off the table. If there’s a great opportunity to do something that seems fun and we think the audience will enjoy it, we’ll do it.

Awesome! With no The Panel, Rove or Hey Hey it’s Saturday on tv currently we were needing something like this again. I thought Micallef might go there with 10 for a tonight show but seems this is happening instead.

I hope it does well and can give a great place for artists to play their music as well as a place for local and overseas celebs to chat as those other shows did.

The Panel didn’t overstay its welcome. It could’ve easily continued, if the hosts had quit and Working Dog kept producing it and had found a newer group of hosts with good chemistry with each other, who could’ve taken over and then have them replaced over a few years, with a new panel, meeting the same criteria.

If it faltered in ratings, it could’ve been moved to One or Eleven, as this new show can be, since TP was a very cheap show to make.

Thanks Maev, I have been using Ten’s catchup to watch The Americans, and anyway the previous separate parts didn’t bother me as they automatically ran in sequence with just a tiny delay where the ads were supposed to be. I meant that I didn’t think that this was going to be “must watch” TV and therefore I was not going to make much effort to watch it.

Good on ten for giving us something different. Refreshing that it is not “reality” again. The Panel had copies attempted on other networks in its day, but they failed as there was no chemistry amongst the cast This show will be no different. But it appears to feature a good cast. Tom is very funny. Looking forward to it. We need something like this.

As for the Melb vs Sydney topic. Sydney has plenty of on air hours with breakfast and morning shows.

Also ten melbourne must now one of a very few internal tv studios capable of having a studio audience??? Feedback anyone??Even though it is small.

A few of the previous posts talk about Melbourne vs Sydney shows. Let’s talk about Wed. pm on ABC. Melbourne-based: Spicks and Specks, Adam Hills Sydney-based: Randling, Tractor Monkeys I rest my case, your Honour. But I will prattle further…. Melbourne has always been the home of cutting edge live TV, since Kennedy in 1957. In recent years, Ten has given live TV more of a go than the other commercial channels. Rove, The Project, Before the Game, The Panel (much missed) and hopefully, this new live show will be a winner. Go TEN!

I remember seeing Tommy Little at the Adelaide Fringe a couple of years ago and really enjoyed him. When I saw he was on the new sports based show I was disappointed as I’d never watch it, but good to hear he is on this non sports show.